17 Responses to “It can happen here”

Well, you know what my wife says….
If Drumpf wins in November our challenge will be to move to Italy BEFORE he gets sworn in as the dictator he thinks we need.
Our Italian friends are laughing but also scared, as they know only too well that this clown is the American version of Silvio Berlusconi.

An apathetic and ignorant voter base is going to get exactly what they deserve. Thinking back, I used to be one of them 20 years ago. I always voted, but did not do my due diligence in researching the issues, all issues. The advent of the innertubes and turning off the cable TV helped me to see what was going on in politics.
According to what I have read in a variety of sources, Trump is winning with only about 30% of the republican base voting. I still don’t think he has a chance in the general election. The democrats and independent voters will flush him to where he belongs, the septic tank. Congress is where the corruption lies.

Yep, Trump’s numbers don’t look great, and his negatives are high, but never underestimate the power of human stupidity. I can see little consistency in our choice of chief executive in recent years; I mean, seriously, Carter, Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II, Obama? A metronome charts a steadier course than that. And the Hilldebeast’s negatives aren’t much better.

Given the state of the Congress there’s not much that any president, regardless of evil intent or moral turpitude, can accomplish. Il Douche has a pretty small fan base inside the Beltway — he’s already managed to crawl up Paul Ryan’s ass, and pissing off the Speaker of the House isn’t a great way to push the agenda you don’t have anyway.

And the Hilldebeast? Well, she’s a Democrat, if only nominally, so fuck her too.

Unless some down-ballot action moves one or both houses back to Donk control, the Congress will sit on its hands and wait until the next go-round, regardless of who’s sitting in the Oval Office.

That’s the appeal of Bernie – assuming a whole lot of folks showed up ready to vote for revolution they’d put a bunch of similar folks in the Senate and House…and then something could get done. But no way are the establishment Doncs gonna let that happen – same reason they torpedoed Howard Dean back-in-the-day. So all we’ll get is the anti-Drumpf’s who are unlikely to vote for real change. The end result is (I hope) we dodge the Drumpf bullet..but Billary won’t be any big catalyst for change. Meanwhile it looks like someone might be challenging ancient Chuck Grassely of Iowa for a change. His antics regarding the Supreme Court finally have Iowans other than me pissed off at him!!!

The common denominator is that, in each race, the loser actively lost more so than the winner won.

Got brains and want to change the world or save the planet? Then you invent something or start a foundation. We’re left with the rejects running for office.

Something I’ve always wanted to ask Neil Degrasse Tyson. Famous quip from him, but one where he set himself up and no one on the panel was smart enough to catch it.

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Neil deGrasse Tyson on Why Lawyers Shouldn’t Be in Congress
Neil deGrasse Tyson: You know what my concern is about Congress? I checked these numbers: 57% of the Senate, 38% of the House cite “law” as their profession. And, when you look at law, law is … well what happens in the courtroom? It doesn’t go to what’s right, it goes to who argues best. And there’s this urge, the entire profession is founded on who the best arguers are.
Maher: Right, a courtroom is not about the truth, it’s about … the theory, if I get what you’re saying, is that each side argue their version and then the truth somehow emerges.
Tyson: That’s the *premise*; however, the practice, which, for example, is bred in debating teams, for example, where you know the subject, but you don’t know which side you’re going to be put on to argue. And so the act of arguing, and not agreeing, seems to be fundamental to that profession, and Congress is half that profession. And I realized this when I was a kid. I was 12 and I said, “I wonder what profession all these Senators and Congressmen were.” Law, law, law, law, businessman, law, law. And I said, “There’s no scientists? Where are the engineers? Where’s the rest of society represented?
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What no one asked him was: Yeah, where are you? What’s it going to take to get you to run?

I’m weak and went to the dark side for a moment. Pleeease don’t block me from the comments. I will send you a new Incredibell if you forgive me. A brass one!
If you don’t, I will take a trip to Duke City and make you take me riding on the river. I need to finish this house bullshit first. Oligarchs control the real estate racket too.
PS: You would be good for this country. Plus the retirement benefits would keep you from working 3 jobs.

I’d love to think that scientists who go into politics are immune from stupidity, but its not all that clear to be the case.

Here in BombTown, our County Council, which is heavily infected with science and engineering degrees, recently voted to approve a Washington, DC “lobbying” agenda. Top of the list? Ensuring that LANL remains part of the privatized military-industrial complex. Not because it is necessarily good for the lab, the public, or the laboratory inmates, but because that keeps the cash flowing at a higher rate into the county coffers, so Council can build more monuments to its greatness.

Self interest rules. That often means the interest of the oligarchs in Congress, not the interests of the public. I think the public, as a whole, is badly infected with the Stockholm Syndrome. Indeed, Bernie is not part of the oligarchy, which is probably why he is not beating Billary, who is part of the oligarchy.

If Il Douche wins in November, which I think is more possible than the talking heads think (remember what Larry’s wife says), we too will have to find a country that would take us.